“Not lately.”
“But in the past? Two gals and a guy, would be my guess.”
“Every man’s fantasy,” he said, “and when it finally came along it was more awkward than anything else.”
“Oh, now that’s disappointing to hear. The best thing about fantasies is they’re always perfect. Nobody has bad breath, nobody has trouble getting it up. And every orgasm is perfect. Well, mine was pretty great just now.”
“I’m not complaining.”
“And yet,” she said, “there’s a kind of lingering horniness after coming that way. Like I didn’t actually do anything, and I kind of want to.”
“But you’ve got appointments.”
“Oh, I do, and then it’s home and hearth for the duration. Which means hubby’s in line to get one amazing blow job before the day is done.”
“And he’ll never know what inspired it.”
“What he’ll also never know,” she said, “is that all the while I’ll be picturing him with an amazing set of tits. And I’ll have a finger in his butt, which we’ve recently established that he kind of likes, but the man hasn’t got a clue where Mama learned that little trick. Oh, look at the time. I’ve got to get off.”
“I thought you already did.”
“Oh, funny. Verrry funny.”
Eight
From six to seven he watched half an hour each of local and national news, then put on the baseball game. The Rays were hosting the Blue Jays at Tropicana Field, and he watched the Toronto pitcher retire the first twelve batters he faced, striking out eight of them.
He wanted to get something to eat, but was reluctant to leave the house until some killjoy broke up the kid’s no-hitter. There was some cereal left, some pretentious granola that promised you’d be saving the planet if you ate enough of it, and the milk smelled fresh, or at least it didn’t smell sour. He ate in front of the TV, and in the sixth inning the pitcher walked the Rays’ first baseman, so that was the end of his perfect game, but the next man up hit into a double play, so he still had a shot at facing only twenty-seven batters, which the announcer kept calling a numerically perfect game.
In the top of the eighth the kid had a three-run cushion, and his fast ball was still getting over at upwards of ninety-two miles an hour. He struck out the first batter, got the second on an easy grounder to the shortstop, took the third to three-and-two before he got him to pop up. Except it was more of a blooper, hit off the end of the bat, just out of reach of both the shortstop and the center fielder, and the game was suddenly no longer perfect numerically or otherwise, and no longer a no-hitter.
The next batter walked, and the one after doubled off the wall in right, and now it was no longer a shutout. And the kid suddenly couldn’t find the plate, and walked the next Blue Jay on four pitches. The pitching coach came out to steady him, and let him face one more batter, which turned out to be a mistake when the batter in question hit one out. That made the score 5–3, and that was enough for the manager. It was also enough for Doak, who turned off the set.
He got dressed, got in his car. The night was cool enough to roll down the windows and get along without the A/C. He drove, put the radio on, turned it off.
Thought about the phone call. Phone sex, he guessed, was the term for it. Thought not about the call’s content but about his own response to it.
The tranny was beside the point. He didn’t think that was something he needed to try in real life, but it had been acceptable enough on a fantasy level. Barb had made it all exciting, and it hadn’t ceased to be exciting, but he had somehow stopped being excited.
What he realized now was that had been his choice. He’d made an unconscious decision not to continue, when to do so would lead to a climax. He’d decided that wasn’t what he wanted, and he’d instructed his body accordingly. He’d gone on listening, and he’d gotten a decent amount of secondhand satisfaction out of Barb’s very audible orgasm, but for him the war was over.
All that remained was to lie about it. Though he hadn’t quite lied, had he? I’m not complaining, he’d told her, and he hadn’t been, so where was the falsehood in that?
Interesting, his choice.
Saving it, was he?
Maybe, but that was taking a lot for granted, wasn’t it? He was taking a long drive on a dark night, along roads he didn’t know, toward a place he’d never been. That was true, he realized, in a literal sense, and perhaps it was figuratively true as well, because he hadn’t been down this road before, and there was no way to know what was at the end of it.
Well, one way. The same way you found out what the future held, and you didn’t need a crystal ball for it, either. All you had to do was wait and see what happened.
The place he was looking for was on Florida 129 a mile and a half south of Live Oak, and when a sign welcomed him to that town he knew he’d overshot. He got the car turned around and backtracked, and there it was on the right, a fair amount of neon, a sign that said Kimberley’s Kove, a one-story concrete block structure with its windows mostly blacked out, and seventeen vehicles, most of them pickups, clustered on the asphalt.
The Monte Carlo made eighteen, and he knew the number because he took the time to count them. Eleven pickups, two motorcycles, and five sedans including his own, which didn’t stand out from the others. They were all of its vintage, and they too looked as though they’d been driven hard on bad roads.
He could call it a night and go home. It wouldn’t take any longer than it had taken to get here, and it would go quicker, because any route always seemed longer the first time you drove it.
He checked his watch, found out it had taken him less time than he’d figured, even with missing the place on the first pass. So leaving now would be a bit previous, as he’d heard people say.
And all that driving had raised a thirst.
Inside, there was a long bar on the left, a juke box as big as any he’d ever seen, an unattended dance floor, and a dozen or so dark wooden tables on the right, with more tables in the rear. There were a few more customers than he’d seen vehicles, but not many, and none of them paid him any real attention. A few heads turned when he walked in, noted his arrival, and turned away.
The juke box was playing an oldie, Waylon Jennings singing about how he was crowding forty and still wearing jeans. Which summed up the crowd, as far as that went. They all looked to be over thirty and no more than fifty, and the majority of them were wearing denim, including all five of the women.
He didn’t see a waitress, but did see another patron get a pair of longneck bottles from the bar and carry them back to a table. Doak went to the bar and asked for Pabst. That’s what the fellow had been carrying, Pabst Blue Ribbon, and that would do, as he didn’t really care what he drank.
He paid for the bottle, carried it to an empty table. Crowding fifty, he thought, but instead of jeans he was wearing the same dark slacks he’d worn to the Winn-Dixie. Different shirt, though. Short sleeves, and sort of a windowpane check.
Christ, was it still the same day?
He nursed the beer, taking small sips from the bottle. He looked over at the door when it opened, and a woman with unconvincing red hair took two steps inside and asked the room if Whitney had been around. Somebody told her he hadn’t. “Well, shit!” she cried, and stormed out, leaving the door to slam behind her.
Another five minutes, maybe ten, and the door swung open again. Heads turned, but no one spoke to the new arrival.
She was wearing jeans, and if she wasn’t yet crowding forty she was gaining on it. She stood for a moment, letting her eyes adjust to the dim lighting, and then she found him and walked without hesitation to his table.